At Saving Faces we hope that everyone who engages with our work are happy with what we do. Without our supporters and stakeholders, we would not be able to continue our vital work in reducing the worldwide reduction of facial injuries and diseases through our research and services.

However, we understand that there may be times when you might be dissatisfied in which case we would like to hear about it. We take complaints and feedback very seriously and view this as an opportunity for us to learn and improve.

How to complain to Saving Faces

You can call us on 020 8223 8049 (lines open 9am – 6pm Monday to Friday)

You can email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Please include your name, address and a telephone number in your email or letter so that we can respond to you easily.

Our response promise

We promise to make an initial response to all complaints that we receive within five working days. However, if we need to conduct further investigations, we will aim to provide a full definitive response within four weeks.

If you do not feel completely satisfied by our response then your complaint will then be passed on to the Chief Executive. Alternatively, you can contact The Charity Commission using the contact details below at any stage.

At Saving Faces ("SF", "we", "us" or "our"), the privacy of users of this site ("you", "your") and security of personal information that we collect is of utmost importance to us.Information provided is used for provision of services by us and our service providers and to promote our charitable aims.

Collecting personal information is necessary if we are to satisfy the expectations and requirements of our users and supporters and to promote our aims, for example, by communicating with you and providing an interactive service.

What information do we collect?

SF collects two kinds of information about our users:

Non-personal information

This includes information such as IP addresses (the location of the computer on the internet), pages accessed and files downloaded. This helps us to determine how many people use our sites, how many people visit on a regular basis, which pages are most popular and which pages are least popular. This information allows us to monitor and improve our service. IP addresses do provide us with some regional information (i.e. country and city) but they cannot be used to tell us who you are or your precise location.

Personal information

We also collect "Personal Information" i.e. information that, on its own or when combined with other information, identifies you or relates to you as an identifiable individual. This includes information such as name, postal address, telephone number, email address, date of birth (where appropriate), card or bank details. We collect this information only in connection with specific activities, such as newsletter requests, Saving Faces Diagnostic Advice Service (SFDADS) membership, Christmas card and other purchases, feedback, donations, competition entries etc. The information is either needed to fulfil your request or to enable us to provide you with a more personalised service. You do not have to disclose any of this information to browse the sites. However, if you do choose to withhold requested information, we may not be able to provide you with certain services.

SF may ask people who contact our Expert Patient Helpline for details of their treatment and current health status. This information will only be stored with the express consent of the user. The user also has the right to withdraw their consent and their information at any time. Service users will be asked for verbal consent to store information which is essential to provide them with appropriate support. This information may also be used in an anonymized form to evaluate the service. Our Expert Patient volunteers are asked to sign a written consent form, to signify that they are happy to have their details stored and to be contacted.

How do we keep data secure?

SF places great importance on the security of all Personal Information associated with our supporters, customers and users. We have appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect the Personal Information under our control from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure. For example, our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorised personnel have access to use information.

We use trusted third party services such as Just Giving, Virgin Money Giving and Paypal to process donations and purchases. These sites use secure server software (SSL) to encrypt financial information you input before it is sent. Please refer to their individual security policies for more information.

Unfortunately, the transmission of data across the internet is not completely secure and whilst we do our best to try to protect the security of your information we cannot ensure or guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of data will not occur whilst you or we are transferring this data.

Where you or we have provided a password enabling you to access parts of our websites or use our services, it is your responsibility to keep this password confidential. Please do not share your password with anyone.

How is the information used?

We use the information we collect about and from you for a variety of purposes such as for our legitimate interests, in order to enter into or perform a contract with you, with your informed consent and/or for compliance with our legal obligations. Such purposes include to:

fulfil your requests, for example applications for membership, donations, competition entries, participation in events or campaigns and provision of information

prevent or detect fraud or abuses of our websites and enable third parties to carry out technical, logistical or other functions on our behalf

in aggregate (and therefore anonymously) to profile your use of the websites and carry out research on our users' demographics, interests and behaviour to help us gain a better understanding of how our users navigate and use the websites, and to enable us to improve our service to you

improve our service to our users

communicate with our supporters

provide you with information which we think may be of interest to you, as explained below

As well as using personal information to fulfil requests, we also like to keep our supporters informed about SF’s activities, campaigns and promotions or about updates to our sites. We don't sell or rent personal information.

By registering/participating in an SF event you will generally be agreeing to receive mailings, emails or text messages from us. In other situations, when submitting your personal information, you will be given the option not to be included in mailings or other contacts from SF (whether by post, email or other electronic messaging, telephone or fax). If at any time you decide you don't want to receive information from us, simply let us know, by phone on 020 34655755 during business hours, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via the website’s contact form.

Where is the information stored?

Information which you submit via our websites is sent for review to our main office in London. This is necessary in order to process the information and to send you the information you have requested. Information submitted by you may transmitted to us or stored using other reputable third party organisations and these may be situated outside the European Economic Area. See below for more details. Information may also be transferred by us to our other offices.

Authorised personnel

Any matters of a confidential nature, including in particular information relating to the diagnosis and treatment of patients, individual staff records and details of contracts, prices and terms, will not under any circumstances be divulged or passed on to any unauthorised person or persons. Information may be shared or discussed among SF staff if deemed necessary for the provision of services. All SF staff are contractually obliged to abide by the SF security policy and legally required to abide by the Data Protection Act. Breaches in confidentiality are treated as serious and may result in the termination of member(s) of staff responsible.

Third party services

SF uses a variety of services hosted by third parties to help us provide and manage our services. Examples include:

Wufoo (owned by Survey Monkey) is used to carry out public, patient and clinician surveys, registration forms and product order forms

Use of cookies

Cookies are small text files sent by websites to your web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome), and stored on your computer’s hard drive. The information is then sent back to the site each time the browser loads a page from the website. This enables our sites to identify and track individual web browsers. A cookie often contains a unique number, which can be used to recognise your computer when you return to a website that it visited previously.

There are two main types of cookies:

session cookies – These are temporary cookies and only stored in your computer’s memory for the time that you are browsing our site. They are deleted as soon as you end your session.

permanent or stored cookies – These are the cookies that remain on your computer even after you have finished your session.

Below are the types of cookies used on our site and their main purposes.

First Party Cookies are set by our websites directly. These include analytics for measuring visitors and patterns of usage. These are not tied to any personal identifiable information. Some specialist sections of the websites are for registered users only. Our content management system also uses cookies to track users who are logged into the system, in this case the information is identifiable.

Third Party Cookies are set by external websites whose services are used in this site. These include but are not limited to social buttons such as Facebook and Twitter, embedded media from YouTube (owned by Google) and forms which use the Wufoo (owned by Survey Monkey) platform. Please be aware that if you have social media accounts with these companies, they may be tracking your visits even if you do not interact with the relevant elements on our sites. We have no control over the use of cookies by these companies. Please check the respective policies of each of their sites to see exactly how they use your information and to find out how to opt out or delete such information.

By using our website you are consenting to these cookies being placed on your browser, however you can disable them using your browser settings. Details of how to do this are listed below.

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but if you prefer, you can change your browser either to block cookies or to notify you when you receive a cookie, giving you the opportunity to decide whether to accept it. If you refuse cookies, you may not be able to take full advantage of our website.

Further information about cookies can be found at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's website www.allaboutcookies.org.

Links

Our sites contain links to other sites. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other websites, even if you access those sites using links from our websites or if you linked to our website from those sites. We recommend that you check the privacy policy of each site you visit and contact the website owner or operator if you have any concerns or questions.

Using our social media pages

Whilst this statement covers our privacy practices and how we will use any data collected from our websites and social media pages on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. it doesn’t cover how providers of social media websites will use your information. You should read the social media site’s privacy policies before adding any content to our social media pages. Make use of the social media site privacy settings and reporting mechanisms to control the way that your information is handled.

Posting content on our websites and social media pages

Any communications sent via our websites is private and viewable by authorised personnel only (i.e. SF staff). Please note that the same does not apply to our social media pages where information is public will appear instantly. While we do monitor these sites for inappropriate content it is not possible to moderate them in real time. So if you post comments about other people it is not only your privacy that is at stake. Protect your friends’ privacy and reputations. Be careful about uploading any content that may show you or your friends in compromising situations and be aware that other users may abuse the content you have provided.

Please don’t provide information about yourself or other people unless you are sure you and they are happy to have it made public. In particular, don’t provide any information about others without their consent where that information might identify them, such as:

names

tagged photos

location

Under no circumstances make public other peoples’ home address, email addresses or contact numbers.

Your rights

• Any personal information submitted via our websites is treated in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. To find out more about your entitlements under this legislation, visit the Information Commissioner's website: www.ico.org.uk

• If you would like to review or revise information you have previously provided to us online, you may do so by contacting us.

• You may request details of personal information, which we hold about you under the Data Protection Act 1998. A small fee may be payable. If you would like a copy of the information held on you or if you have any questions relating to this statement or how we use the personal information we have about you, please contact us.

Contact us

If you have any queries, concerns or complaints regarding this Policy, please contact us.

Changes

We may make changes to this Policy from time to time. If we change our Privacy Policy we will post the changes on this page.

Your acceptance of this Policy

By using our sites or social media pages, by registering for our newsletter or participating in an event, you consent to the collection and use of information by SF in accordance with our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this Policy, please do not use our sites or social media page.

If you have any questions relating to this Privacy Policy or how we use the personal information we have about you, please contact us.

Saving Faces is a registered research charity based at Mile End Hospital, London. The charity is the brainchild of Consultant Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon, Professor Iain Hutchison, who launched Saving Faces in 2000. Over the years Iain and his colleagues came to realise that very little research was being conducted into the treatment of facial diseases such as oral cancer and that many of the facial injuries they saw everyday could be prevented through education.

There are now more than 40 facial surgeons throughout the United Kingdom collaborating with a team of seven talented Saving Faces researchers. Together they are carrying out groundbreaking work in areas such as the role of selective neck dissection in early oral cancer treatment, the psychological factors in head and neck and gastrointestinal cancer, the prevention of smoking and binge drinking amongst teenagers and the use of microcytoscopy to provide a non-invasive, in-vivo rapid detection tool for oral cancer.

This collaborative approach enables our researchers to answer vital questions more rapidly than even the most famous of single institutions. In addition to the surgeons who volunteer their services, Saving Faces is also fortunate to have patients who are willing to participate in clinical trials to give hope to others who will in future undergo treatment. Former patients are also providing support to newly-diagnosed patients and their families through a support network. The emotional and psychological impact of surgery is often just as traumatic as the procedure itself.

The research we conduct is partly funded by institutional donors but relies heavily on the support of individuals who want to see progress in this much-neglected area of medical research. Many of these donors have themselves experienced the devastating effect of oral cancer or facial injury. With their help and the support of the public we will make a difference to the lives of thousands of people.

At Saving Faces we keep our administrative costs to a minimum so donors can feel secure in the knowledge that their money goes towards important medical research and the support of patients.